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The Bunker: Entertaining Thoughts About the N.H.L.

By Mark Pargas October 15, 2008 4:43 pmOctober 15, 2008 4:43 pm

What is the mission of the National Hockey League? Is it to take our money? Well, yes, but there has to be more than that. Is it to take our money in exchange for entertainment involving skaters and goaltenders who are allowed to play their game at its highest level of creativity?

As a former boss might say, “Hold on there, Hoss!”

There is that little matter (I said little, not large) of creativity that needs to be addressed.

In reviewing Allan Muir’s previews for SI.com, I found myself repeatedly coming back to this particular passage.

There are nights when three hours of filibustering congressmen offer more compelling viewing than a well-executed Hitchcock game plan. But the former Cup-winner in Dallas places little value on entertainment.

Granted, these are Muir’s words, not those of Columbus Coach Ken Hitchcock, but they bring me back to the eternal question. Shouldn’t entertainment be a major part of the package? I think so, but Hitchcock is not the first person to use, shall we say, the minimal entertainment approach to win in the N.H.L.

But is it fair to the fan? Between the full house in St. Paul and the 12,000 or so who used to wander in to East Rutherford, N.J., there have to be some thoughts on creative hockey versus dump and trap hockey. My money is on creative, but there have to be more voices out there. Are you entertained by the trap? And will this, to be fair, conservative approach to hockey bring a Cup to Columbus in your lifetime? Anyone? Bueller?

The Return of the Formerly Mighty Men of Jade and Eggplant

I know it’s early, but the Anaheim Ducks appear to be in worse shape than the Los Angeles Kings. Discounting penalties of foolish aggression, and the equally predictable bout between George Parros and Raitis Ivanans, the Ducks looked out of sorts amid a 6-3 loss the the Kings at Staples Center on Tuesday night.

It was a challenge for the Bunker to find any traces of the team that bull-rushed everyone to win the Stanley Cup just a little more than a season ago. (Granted it was tough to really follow the game at times during the FSWest mutlicamera presentation, which left this viewer desiring the traditional format.) Ryan Getzlaf is up to his old tricks, and that’s good, but the Ducks are not able to survive their excessive amount of penalties.

They gave up three power-play goals to the Kings last night. In their championship season, the Ducks could take five foolish penalties and still play with a swagger, knowing that it would take more than their overaggressive penalties to bring them down. Now the Ducks are bringing themselves down. Yes, it’s still early, but mistakes don’t need a lot of time to develop into bad habits.

My Seats Are Bad, and I’m at Home

FSWest employed a host of new camera angles as part of an experiment to bring the arena experience to the home viewer. Well, I applaud the attempt, but I found the experience to be frustrating at times.

Cameras along the glass were able to better capture the players entering the neutral zone, but any play in the offensive zones appeared, well, like you were seated along the glass and far away from the action in front of the net. It was tough to see the defense set up or find an open man up ice because the angle of the cameras along the glass had a better view of the near corner rather than the entire offensive/defensive zone.

It was different, but I’ll mark it down as an early effort and note that there is room to improve. Remember when Red Wings games broadcast from the Joe made you feel like you were on the arena’s catwalk? The high angle was necessary because the traditional camera angle routinely caught someone either going for or coming back with another Big Beer and a slice. The Wings found a way to make the traditional angles work without depriving fans at the Joe of their Big Beer and pizza.

Alpha Dogs and Beta Web Sites

CBS Sportsline is the winner of my first scoreboard page competition. The page updates rapidly and you do not have to refresh anything. And, when there are 12 games being played, each game fits on a laptop screen. No scrolling. This is the area of hockey where a minimalist approach is entertaining. Not a lot of graphics here, but plenty of information at a steady clip. As the last part of my test, I checked the scoreboards of Sportsnet.ca and TSN.ca, which require you to refresh. The bunker likes service, so CBS Sportsline rates as the leader of the pack, followed by ESPN.com and Yahoo!Sports. In a new subcategory, the NHL.com page beats Sportsnet and TSN when it comes to those you must repeatedly refresh to gain updates.

The NHL.com site is in its beta state, which means the operators are encouraging feedback as they work toward completion. No chance on them putting in a refresh button so that you can have someone bring a Big Beer and a slice to you promptly upon request.

Wednesday’s Picks to Click

Bruins/Canadiens on the big screen at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, and the Sabres/Rangers play on the small screen starting at 7. Coyotes/Blackhawks and Predators/Stars (both starting at 8:30) in a rotation on Internet radio. Oilers/Ducks go on the big screen at 10.

The Rangers’ recent win over the Devils was a frightening look into a future of trap and snooze hockey…I hope this doesn’t become the norm. I wonder what the first meeting of Columbus and New Jersey will afford. Ten players, buzzing around between the two blue lines, waiting to bust a skater out?

CBS Sportsline is my runaway favorite for internet hockey data. The NHL is ridiculous. I haven’t even been able to get GameCenter to work. I don’t need (un)real time x’s on a hockey rink simulacrum to show me where shots were taken from. And I don’t need some poor sod typing cryptic “game action” phrases to engage me.

Too many coaches in the modern NHL coach not to lose instead of to win. That’s why New Jersey’s winning the Stanley Cup three times has been bad for the NHL. I wonder if the guaranteed point takes away from late-game play, as teams play for OT, then go like gangbusters if they’re playing a nonconference opponent but play closer to the vest if it’s a conference (especially divisional) rival. No wonder I wish the NHL would scrap a point for losing and extend OT to 10 minutes before going to a five-round shootout. There are so many creative players in the modern game that there’s no reason why we at home or the fans in the arena need to sit through a 1-0 taffee pull.

Also, Mark, I thought NHL.com was going to offer classic games on the web. Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see any games from the 1950s through the late 1990s on its site.

Completely agree on the coaching-not-to-lose point. I think the only way to restore sanity is to go back to 60 minutes, 2 points for win, 1 point for tie, 0 points for loss. You’re undoubtedly closer to these things than I, but when did a tie become such a crime?

If NHL.com ever offered a substantial classic game package, I’d probably pay for it. NHL Network has — I don’t know — 20 or so in rotation, but I’m ready for more.

Perhaps the tie became a bit more odious after my Rockies parlayed 21 ties to gain a berth in the 1978 playoffs.

Sure it was the less than perfect Smythe Division, which the Blackhawks won with a 29-36-15 record. The Rox were 19-40-21 and proudly carried the Mountain crest into battle against the Flyers.

Rockies were crushed in that best-of-three series, two games to none.

I would like there to be no ties. Just play until the game is decided. Now that teams take charter flights rather than squeeze an entire team onto a commercial flight, why not stay until the job is done?

No points, just wins and losses, like baseball’s approach.

If we must have ties, then only wins count. In other words, a tie is as good as a loss in that there is no credit for either one. Should tiebreakers be required to determine a playoff berth, then goal differential would be my critical determining factor.

You crush a team by 6-0? Kudos and a playoff berth to you. You play a suffocating late night broomball style of hockey (Wild, Devils, Blue Jackets and last year’s version of the Canucks?) and win by 1-0? Well, you’re five short of a berth. Grab some bench.

Tough love, but I think the plan has merit and acts as a proper response to the sins of the 77-78 Colorado Rockies.

I just want to see a more offensive style rewarded. Speaking of rewards, Sheldon Souray scores as the Oilers swarm Anaheim’s Jonas Hiller and manage to score just before the end of the second period. The score is tied at two.

Will these teams turtle up and wait for shootout to settle things? I hope not. But the Bunker is up late to monitor the action.

The formerly Mighty Men of Jade and Eggplant fall to 0-4 as Edmonton hangs on to a 3-2 victory on the road. Nice to see Lubomir Visnovsky hammer in the game-winning goal on the power play. And with Mathieu Garon picking up the victory, it’s another good night for former Kings.

Best of all? No ties, just good up-and-down hockey. I’ll sleep good tonight. I’m setting the tape for “On the Fly: Final” and then turning out the light in the bunker.

See you all later this morning with the Junior Report and in the later afternoon with another report from the Bunker.

I’m a Center Ice subscriber and caught both the Ducks/Kings and Ducks/Oilers games on FSWest the past two nights.

I completely agree with your observations about the camera angles. Not only did the cameras along the glass make it difficult to follow play in the offensive/defensive zones but there was a constant cut (every three or four seconds it seemed) from one camera to another that often lost track of the play completely.

I certainly hope this is an early effort that will improve rather than an avant-garde approach to broadcasting games that other stations will start to copy.

I, too, would rather see teams play until someone scores. Winners and losers — that’s what it’s all about. Think teams would play defensively if they knew regular-season games might go a full OT or two. Not a chance!

Hey, Probber, don’t get me started on ties. (JZK is all too familiar with my rants against points for losing.) As I’ve mentioned too many times, fans want to go home happy or sad, and I’d rather have my Rangers lose to the Islanders 10 straight times than to tie them.

BTW, I redid last season’s standings giving teams only wins and losses, and while a few spots changed in the East, the Western Conference standings would have stayed the same. I like the clean look of MLB and NBA standings.

The NJ team in 2000/01 was the highest scoring team in the league. They were 2nd highest in scoring in 1998/99 and 1999/2000. And magically, they played the trap, even during those high scoring years. Detroit has played the trap for most of the last 10 years. The 70’s Canadiens played the trap and won a gazillion Cups.

The trap is a defensive scheme that helps set up your offense (if you have one). When oh when will people understand that ‘low scoring team’ does not equal ‘they play the trap’. Low scoring means that you don’t have players that can score. You can also play the trap, but it pretty much guarantees that you’re not going to go very far if you don’t have good offense (or great goalie).

The trap, as played by the Devils, is not entertaining. And at close to $100 for a good seat, it’s definitely not worth the price of admission to watch passive-aggressive behavior.

I don’t want forechecking to mean wait until they approach the neutral zone to show any interest. The game is supposed to have passion and feature confrontation at high speeds. It isn’t supposed to resemble the thrill one feels when approaching the Turnpike tollbooths without EZPass at 10 miles per hour.

Devils games and Wild games, for two, lack passion. Just ask the people in the Northwest Division who are more than willing to give up their tickets when the Wild are on the billing.

Devils hockey also lacks that entertainment value. I give credit to the 12,000 or so dedicated Devils fans who show up to watch. (And bless the fans, those in their big blue sweaters, who drop by to help actually fill the Devils’ building when the Rangers visit.)

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